Item or NFT

Q: What Items are?

A: In our platform, Items are unique or semi-unique digital assets. Together with Coins, Items form the basis of "token economy" of your Ecosystem.

Q: What are the characteristics and attributes of Items?

A: Items have the following main features / characteristics:

• Name - there is usually a short name for an Item
• Image - preview image, usually generated by our platform based on the first multimedia image uploaded as part of Item's associated metadata and multimedia (see below)
• Rarity - there is always a limited quantity of Items. Items can be unique (1 out of 1 available) or there may be a limited amount issued (for example, 2/5 means you own 2 copies out of 5 totally created)
• Ownership - Item is always owned by a certain User (or Room/Space) and is held in their wallet
• Transferability - depending on your Configuration, Items can be made transferrable or non-transferrable
• Transactions - Unless this is disabled, items can be transferred between Users (including real users and chat bots) or held in Rooms/Spaces. All transactions are recorded at immutable distributed cryptographic ledger. Users may gift/sell/exchange/swap items directly, or deal with 3rd party platforms such as auctions and exchanges.
• Minting - creating Items is called minting. Depending on your Ethora engine settings, end users may be allowed to mint items, or it may be limited to application Owners.
• Metadata and Multimedia payload - Items usually include some art / multimedia with them, such as a graphical image or images, photo, video, 2D/3D animation, sounds. They may also include data in other formats such as statistical data, documents, 3D models etc.
• Provenance - as Item gets transferred (for example, created by its author, then sold, auctioned etc) its Provenance (history of transactions) is automatically tracked via blockchain transactions. This enables anyone to check the history of the Item starting from the date, time and signature of the person or organization that has minted it. This ensures transparency and trust for Item transactions in your Ecosystem.

Q: Are Items NFT tokens?

A: Yes, items are essentially NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens) based on standard Ethereum blockchain network protocols. Currently we implement ERC-721 standard.

Q: Why have you chosen NFT standard for Items?

A: This allows Items ownership to be truly decentralized and "trustless". This means the end user know their Items belong to them and they are in full control over their ownership. Items are not simply database records at some company's servers. Since wallets, transactions and Items balances are handled via blockchain, whoever runs the blockchain nodes

Q: Who can receive and own Items?

Items can be transferred to:

• Users (including real physical persons / entities or not)
• Chat bots
• Rooms / Spaces
• Messages (in this case the User who has written the message will receive the Item)

Q: Can Items be taken / used outside of our App?

A: As an Owner of the ecosystem you decide and specify in Configuration whether your Users are allowed to take Items outside (into metaverse) or bring external Items inside (from the metaverse).

In most of the applications of Ethora engine, currently Owners prefer to keep Items and Coins limited to their App and their Ecosystem, creating a sort of "walled garden". This also makes sense in use cases where end users aren't "crypto savvy" and may be confused by terms and technologies such as crypto wallet, Ethereum blockchain, ERC-721 tokens, metaverse, decentralized exchanges, token offerings etc. This is totally fine and we have built Ethora engine and Dappros Platform exactly to allow such Ecosystems to thrive benefitting from all the advantages and security of blockchain technology, while keeping it simple for their end users.

If you decide in future or at once to allow using Items and Tokens externally, for example so that your users can sell / auction / exhibit Items purchased, earned or otherwise received in your App, this can be enabled in Configuration. This will require resubmitting your App into Apple and Google appstores as well as public blockchain fees paid by your end users or your Application. Ethora / Dappros tech support team will never enable this functionality for you unless you expressly request it in written.

Q: What are Items used for?

A: We leave it to our Owners, developers and product designers to decide how they want to use Items in their Ecosystem.

So far the main existent use cases are:

• Gamification of all sorts - for example, earning Badges, Cups or other prizes for active participation in the community. Such badges are displayed in users profiles and are great for gamification and engagement in your Ecosystem.
• Collectibles and memorabilia - e.g. Ecosystems devoted to a certain sport, genre, a specific celebrity, Items may contain photographs, autographs, other items and collectables related to specific famous persons, teams/clubs etc. In case an authorised
• Certificates - Items could be used for certificates, diplomas etc, for example educational or health test certificates to display certain credentials of the User. N.B.: In this case it makes sense to make the Items non-transferrable in case where Users themselves upload the documents (self-certify) or only transferrable once (from issuing authority to the end user).
• Business documents - similarly to Certificates, Items can be simply used to hold digital copies of any documents whenever it makes sense to put them on blockchain and/or display in Users profiles or in Rooms/Spaces. The Provenance and immutable ledger aspects ensure that the creation or upload and transfers of documents are going to perpetually remain in the history of transactions. This may be useful for administrative and audit purposes.
• Gaming - use Items for in-game artifacts, prizes etc. Gaming mechanics can be implemented via Chat Bots.
• Asset tracking in supply chain - example: farmer or harvesting machine takes a picture of a fruit and its surroundings, this picture and other metadata (time, GPS location) are minted into an Item, then Item is transferred between different Users that reflect supply chain participants and then Item is either collected or simply viewed via a QR code by the buyer in the store. This allows the buyer to track the provenance of the product via its unique digital Item.

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Note: See also "NFT minting and transfers" page for further information.